


5 Steps to Grief

by EclecticInkling



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Related, Canon Universe, Character Study, Death, Gen, Happy Ending, M/M, One Shot, but not actually, is not really character death, seems like character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-20 04:22:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10654815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EclecticInkling/pseuds/EclecticInkling
Summary: He knows what this is. Knows just as surely as his own name, or the weight of his fully-formed bayard in the palm of his hand, or the fact that he’ll probably never get to see Earth or his little shack in the desert ever again, that this is how he’s going to die. That this blaster shot is the last thing he’s going to experience. That he’s running straight into the arms of death.Keith probably shouldn’t be so amused by that.





	5 Steps to Grief

**Author's Note:**

> originally written for the [ Run! charity zine ](https://runcharityzine.tumblr.com/)

1.

He knows what this is. Knows just as surely as he knows his own name, or the weight of his fully-formed bayard in the palm of his hand, or the fact that he’ll probably never get to see Earth or his little shack in the desert ever again.

Strangely enough, he finds himself content with this. With knowing his home planet is so far out of reach. The fact of the matter is, Keith never planned on returning to Earth in the first place. He’d hoped, of course, because, while he might not have a family waiting for him like Pidge or Lance or Hunk, Earth is still his home, and will always be his home, with all of its good and bad and things in between. So he’d hoped, but he’d never planned on it. He knows too well what this thing they’re doing out here— this whole ‘defenders of the universe’ thing they’ve had thrust upon them— actually means. Knows this is war, and that they’re on the front lines, and realistically the chances of all of them returning to Earth at the end of this long, messy fight is slim to none. The best they can hope for is having four out of five outlive the fight. And, out of all of them, Keith’s pretty sure his name is near the top of the list for those that don’t make it, mostly due to his impulsive, lone-wolf tendencies and his complete inability to back down from a fight.

So, of course, it’s just his luck that what cements his spot as the paladin that doesn’t make it actually isn’t either of those things, but rather his exceptionally deep bond with the rest of his team. His intrinsic need to keep them all safe.

 _Irony,_ his thoughts supply. It brings to mind the beak-nosed, thin-lipped woman who had taught his English 8 class right before he’d reached the minimum age for enrolling in Galaxy Garrison, when all of his grief and loneliness had started manifesting in outbursts of anger and disciplinary problems. _Irony is when the audience is aware of something that the character on stage is himself unaware of,_ he recalls her saying. Recalls, too, his first year at Galaxy Garrison and Professor Iverson’s lectures on the history of human flight and the discovery of how jets, given enough momentum and a powerful enough engine, can break past the aerodynamic drag to fly faster than the speed of sound.

That’s how he feels right now, seeing the beam of concentrated light gather at the tip of the Galra blaster. It takes only a second, only a quick glance up at the blaster aimed right at Lance’s back, to see what’s happening and know how it’s going to end. Thoughts whirl through his head like a storm, flitting across his mind one after the other at a speed so fast that everything else around him seems to pause.

It all seems to pause.

The blaster shot crawls through the air toward Lance, who’s shooting at the Galra soldiers in front of him, completely unaware of the danger headed his way. But Keith is aware. He sees it happening in front of him in slow motion, only a few steps out of reach, and knows with its angle and proximity that the shot means certain death if something isn’t done. He’s the audience in this situation, watching the irony unfold before him with a horror that quickly morphs into determination. Because he might be the audience, but he’s an audience that can actually _do_ something.

He starts to move. His left leg lifts, quadriceps contracting with the motion, while the soleus and gastocnemius muscles of his right leg extend and flex to push him forward. The ground beneath his foot is solid and rough and gives him ample support to cross the short distance between himself and Lance before the blast hits. And he knows that it’s possible. He’s fast enough. Has a clear path and just enough time to reach that point of interception. Protecting Lance from that shot is completely possible, so long as Keith runs with everything he has. So long as he keeps moving forward.

And as soon as his foot hits the ground, he knows. He knows what this is. Knows just as surely as his own name, or the weight of his fully-formed bayard in the palm of his hand, or the fact that he’ll probably never get to see Earth or his little shack in the desert ever again, that this is how he’s going to die. That this blaster shot is the last thing he’s going to experience. That he’s running straight into the arms of death.

Curious, how the irony of the situation seems to flip onto its head with that first step of his. How he, the actor, knows something his new audience does not.

Keith probably shouldn’t be so amused by that.

 

2.

The others haven’t yet noticed what’s happening with Lance, and, by extension, Keith. They’re all tied up with their own fights, their own problems— too distracted to notice anything amiss, especially since the entire battlefield itself is in complete chaos. They probably won’t notice until the blast actually hits Keith. Until they hear his cry of pain and see him crumple to the ground and watch him bleed out onto the rocky surface, covering it in deep, deep red.

Keith kind of hopes the blast takes him out quickly, before he himself can experience all that. This right here is the easy part, after all. The running. He’s been doing that since he was eight years old.

His foot strikes the ground— heel first, then rolling onto the arch, and then the ball, and then the toes. The ground is rock beneath him. Solid, unyielding, unchanging. But half of him expects to feel the slip of sand beneath his weight. Expects his foot to sink into the ground and kick up dust, because that’s just what he’s used to. Especially in this frantic state of mind.

His foot strikes the ground, and for just a moment, he’s back there. On Earth. Back in the desert he grew up in and running with fierce abandon across the land, arms flung out wide and face lifted into the wind, soaring beneath the clear blue sky like the fighter jets that sometimes pass overhead. At eight years old, he knows the desert like the back of his hand. Knows the cacti and the tiny wildflowers, knows the burrows of the desert mice and the nests of the verdins that swoop through the air, knows where the desert suddenly drops down and becomes a canyon.

He’s not allowed to go down into the canyon by himself. It’s too dangerous, his dad says. Too easy to fall down, or get lost in. But the canyon calls to him. Keith stands on the edge and feels it pulling on his soul. Hears it calling to him in the wind whistling through the crevices. _Come,_ it says to him. _Come, child, and see what you will find._

Most days, Keith remembers his dad’s warnings and backs away from the canyon, turning on his heel and running back across the desert to quietly play elsewhere while he waits for his dad to return home. But sometimes the call is too powerful, the longing too much, and Keith will descend into the canyon. He’ll follow the old quarry trails and slip through gaps in the rocks for as long as he is able. He’ll walk until his legs give out from exhaustion, or until he can no longer find the trail and has to stop. And then he’ll sit on the edge of the trail and peer down into the canyon and wonder what might be at the bottom, among the crevices and caves, until the sun begins to set and it’s time for him to return home.

He never tells his dad about these days, but Keith suspects he knows about them anyways. How could he not, when his dad knows pretty much everything?

Sometimes, he’ll take Keith out to the canyon himself. He’ll lead Keith down the rocky-faced cliffs and through the wind-carved crevices, to where arches of rock curve over small pools of water, and the canyon will seem all the more magical for it. They’ll sit in the canyon as the sun sets, beneath the criss-crossing archways, and watch the stars come out, and his dad will tell him things they’ll never talk about in the light of day. Stories about alien wars and distant planets and how Keith’s mother came from the stars.

“There’s so much out there, kiddo,” he’ll say. “So much we haven’t seen or discovered. So much more than what we have here.”

His dad will get a distant look in his eyes then. Like he’s seeing something Keith can’t. Like he’s somewhere else entirely, somewhere far away that Keith can’t get to, even though Keith can still feel his dad’s warmth pressed along his side. The sparkling reflection of stars will fill his eyes, and Keith will think then that one day he’ll lose his dad. One day his dad will go to that place Keith can’t reach, and there will be nothing Keith can do about it. Even if he searches across all of space and time.

He didn’t have a word for it back then. That feeling of dread deep in his stomach, roiling and churning and seeping like poison through his veins. But now that he’s feeling it again, he thinks he might understand it a bit better. Can name that heaviness in his gut as the feeling of helplessness, because he knows, no matter what happens, he can’t truly defend himself from this situation. Either way, he’s going to feel pain. The only choice he has is in _which_ pain will pierce his armor. Which he’ll have to endure.

And Keith really doesn’t want to spend another ten years desperately running after someone who will never return.

That was the whole reason he’d enlisted in Galaxy Garrison, after all. Because, at some point, he realized if he was going to find his dad anywhere, it wasn’t going to be in the desert, or the canyon, or anywhere else on this planet— it would be up here, with the stars. And he kind of needed wings for that. So he’d signed up, and he’d worked hard, and he’d climbed to the top of his class because he knew that was the only way he’d get to fly. He’d run, and run, and _run_ , chasing his dad’s shadow with a single-minded focus. And all for nothing.

That’s not going to be Lance. Not this time. Not if he can help it.

 

3.

He leans forward and presses all his weight onto his toes. Feels the strain of his calf muscles as his knee bends and prepares to launch him forward, like a tightly-coiled spring just waiting to be released. He leans forward, and, as he does so, his hand lifts. It stretches out in front of him, palm open wide and fingers reaching, _reaching_ for Lance’s back, straining past his own physical limits to somehow grab the back of Lance’s armor and pull him to safety.

Of course, Lance is too far away to even touch yet. Several steps still lie between them— an objectively short distance if he really thinks about it, but in this moment of halted time it feels like miles. An entire length of land that will take Keith hours to cross. But he can’t stop himself from reaching out anyways. Just as he can’t stop himself from calling out, and letting Lance’s name roll from his tongue into the air between them.

He starts with the ‘L’— a quick press of tongue against the back of his teeth and a hum in his throat. And then his tongue is slipping down and his mouth is opening and the hum becomes a cry that tears from his throat through the battlefield in the form of an ‘A.’ It’s a harsh sound, which is weird to him because usually when he says Lance’s name it’s soft, like the gentle drizzle of spring rain. This is more like the violent gusts of a hurricane, and it whips across the battlefield with just as much force.

Lance’s head tilts up to catch the sound. He’s the first to recognize it. Of course he is; it’s his own name, after all. Keith sees his cry catch Lance’s attention like a fish on a hook, and then Lance is turning his head to acknowledge it before Keith even finishes closing his mouth on the ‘N.’ There’s a grin on his face. A wide stretch of his lips that’s almost smug, and it squeezes around Keith’s heart like a vice because Lance doesn’t yet know. He doesn’t understand. But he will soon.

Their eyes lock as Keith hisses out the final ‘CE’ of Lance’s name, and he already knows what Lance will see. The outstretch of Keith’s arm, his body in full-sprint, his eyes and mouth stretched wide by the terror fueling him; and all of this directed at Lance himself. All of this screaming _danger, danger_ like some sort of biological alarm.

It’s not a good look on him. He knows because Lance has told him so, many times before. Usually in the soft, wrecked tone that only shows up after they’ve had a fight. The one that makes Keith want to strangle himself for making Lance so upset.

But more than that, he knows because he sees the way Lance reacts to it. And that tightening of the shoulders, that slow drop of his smile into a horrified gape, that way he turns his entire torso to face Keith instead of just his head, tells Keith exactly how bad he looks right now. He reads the heavy tension coiling through Lance’s body as his right foot swings forward and stretches toward the ground, and part of him hates that causing such a reaction is necessary. That he has to hurt Lance now in order to protect him.

Keith’s chest constricts. It’s difficult to breathe, each gulp of air burning in his nose and lungs, and he can’t tell if it’s from the exhaustion of sprinting after fighting for so long, or from seeing the fear etched across Lance’s face. Maybe it’s a bit of both.

What was it Lance used to say? Back on those rare occasions he actually joined Keith’s early morning training sessions? What was it he always teased Keith with?

In his mind’s eye, the battlefield melts away and is replaced by the stark whites and blues of the Castle’s training deck. It’s just him and Lance here. He thinks the others might be off visiting the planet they’re currently orbiting. Or possibly they’re in the hangars with the lions. Or in the kitchens. Or somewhere else. The important thing is they aren’t _here._ It’s just the two of them right now. Just him and Lance, standing across from each other with bayards in hand and sweat dripping from their hairlines.

“Don’t you ever rest?” Lance asks, bracing himself against his knees and looking up at Keith through the sweat-darkened strands of his brown hair. He’s breathing heavy, and there’s a flush high in his cheeks. He’s clearly exhausted, but he still quirks a cocky grin that leaves Keith feeling like the one who’s winded. “You know, just stop? Take a break? A breather?”

“Why?”

Lance groans and falls dramatically to the floor. “’Why,’ he asks me. ‘Why?’”

Deactivating his bayard, Keith squats down beside Lance and stares at him spread out on the training deck floor like some sort of giant, exhausted starfish. Keith pokes Lance with a finger. Then pokes him even harder when Lance tries to swat his hand away.

“Are you dead?” he asks Lance, who snorts.

“Might as well be,” Lance replies, throwing an arm across his eyes. His tone is more amused than anything though, so Keith doesn’t take him too seriously. Just nudges him into sitting back up, and then into standing, and then back into fighting position for yet another round. “Evil,” Lance complains. “You’re evil. And you’re going to kill me with your inability to take a break. Look, I’m already breathless.”

Oh, that’s right. That’s what it was.

Of course, Keith had laughed and told Lance to suck it up at the time, but even then he’d understood exactly what Lance was saying. Perhaps even better than Lance knew or intended in the first place. The phrase stuck with Keith, and reappeared in his mind sporadically. Usually in relation to something Lance had said or done.

Like when he grinned, all cocksure and confident, after landing a shot none of the rest of them could ever make. Or when he pulled Hunk and Pidge into dancing with him after discovering a collection of Altean music that could _almost_ pass for the pop music from back home. When he talked Shiro down from a particularly bad panic attack or nightmare, when he hugged Pidge and offered words of comfort after another failed attempt at finding her brother, when he volunteered to help Hunk in the kitchen because he knew it was Hunk’s way of coping and that he would want someone there with him. When he selflessly threw himself in front of the rest of them, never thinking to ask for the same in return. And on, and on, and on.

 _Look,_ Keith would think in those moments. _Look, I’m already breathless._

And now here he is, just two steps away from Lance and already feeling winded again. Two steps away and moving with so much momentum he couldn’t stop, even if he wanted to. Two steps away and running straight into disaster because Lance was right about Keith’s inability to rest resulting in death, but it shouldn’t be Lance’s. He’s too good for this kind of death. Too kind. Too bright. Too important.

And if the price to keep Lance from death’s door is his own life, then at least Keith is used to being without air.

 

4.

He’s one step away now, and almost directly in line with the blaster shot heading for Lance. It’s a little close for comfort. The purple light hangs suspended in the air just a few feet away from Lance, who still hasn’t seen it coming because his blue eyes are locked on Keith. But a few feet mean nothing outside this brief halt in time, and it will take no more than a few seconds for that light to hit its target— shorter than the time it will take for Keith to run into its path.

If he jumps now, however, he might be able to make it. His body will cross the path of the shot before it’s able to slip past him, and it might hit him directly in the stomach, where he has no actual armor, but he prefers that to the shot hitting Lance on his unprotected back.

In fact, his body is already preparing to make the leap. His left leg bends, folding more than it has for his previous steps, while he draws his arms slightly towards himself. He’ll need their force and their reach to cover as much distance as he can, so Keith prepares accordingly, just as he’s always been taught. _Maximize your resources,_ his mind recites in what he thinks is Shiro’s voice. _Use every advantage. Remember, patience yields focus._

Shiro himself is standing nearly halfway across the battlefield, far from what’s about to occur, but even he seems to have noticed that something isn’t quite right. He’s turned toward Lance and Keith and is staring at them with an unreadable expression on his face. It’s hard to tell from so far away, but Keith thinks it must be caught somewhere between horrified, devastated, and enraged, unsure which emotion it should be expressing first, if any at all. But despite all of that, despite the mess of emotions playing across Shiro’s face, Keith still thinks he can see a hint of resignation and acceptance in Shiro’s dark eyes, and it makes him wonder if maybe Shiro knew something like this might one day come to pass. If maybe, like Keith and his dad, Shiro had somehow known Keith would step beyond his reach and run headlong for the stars.

Hunk and Pidge, too, have noticed the change in tension and have spun around to figure out what’s happening. They’re much further away— even further than Shiro, whom Keith can barely see— so Keith can’t make out their expressions. But he can imagine them. Can imagine the flatness of Pidge’s face as she realizes what Keith’s doing and emotionally shuts down from it. Can see the widening of Hunk’s eyes and slackness of his jaw, and even see the wetness gathering in the corner of his eyes because, while they were never the best of friends, they were still pretty close, and Hunk’s love and care for his friends is bigger than anything Keith’s ever known.

Privately, Keith wishes they hadn’t looked. He’d spare them this moment, if he could. He’d spare all of them this moment, especially Lance and Shiro. But that’s already a lost cause, so instead Keith thinks wryly of how the irony from before has now come full circle, and hopes this moment of realization doesn’t break them apart too badly. That they’ll be able to pick up the pieces and keep on fighting, even without Keith there with them.

Taking a deep breath, Keith shuts his eyes and takes that final push forwards. He thinks he might hear Lance say something as he leaps into the blast, but he can’t quite make it out, and he soon stops trying. A strange sense of calm settles over Keith in the air. A sort of serenity, or maybe a peace of mind. He thinks of the desert back home, of the red rocks and clear, blue sky, and he stretches out one final time just as he had as a child, reaching for the stars from that canyon cliff.

There’s a bright light behind his closed eyelids.

Then a burning pain in his stomach.

Then, nothing.

 

5.

In death, Keith dreams of the Garrison. Of its metal walls and garish, orange uniforms. Of the first time he meets Lance.

He’s in the mess hall when Lance approaches, sitting alone at one of the tables because none of the other cadets dare to come near him, and because Shiro is the only officer who cares enough about Keith as a person to pay attention to him outside of the classroom as well. But Shiro is stuck in meetings all day about the upcoming mission to Kerberos, so Keith isn’t expecting him to show up for lunch break as usual. He isn’t expecting the jarring clatter of a plastic tray against the metal table that startles him from his own thoughts.

Keith looks up, ready to throw an annoyed quip about punctuality and manners at his mentor, but he isn’t met with Shiro’s face. Or with the face of any cadet he’s previously spoken to. This is someone new. An unknown variable, of sorts. And it frightens the annoyance clear out of Keith, leaving only surprise in its place.

“Who are you?” he demands, and then flinches back. Subtlety has never been his strong suit, after all, and it’s already earned him quite a bit of trouble over the short years of his life. He’s not keen on starting even more with this gangly, dark-skinned boy who looks vaguely familiar in the I’ve-seen-him-around-here kind of way.

“Lance,” the boy says, taking the empty seat across from Keith. “The name’s Lance. And you’re Keith.”

It’s not a question, Keith notes. Lance is confident in his address. He knows exactly whom he’s talking to, which means he’s either been keeping tabs on Keith or he’s been asking around. Keith’s not sure which possibility he prefers.

“We share some classes,” Lance continues when Keith takes too long to respond. And that _does_ surprise Keith, because he feels like he should know who Lance is if that’s the case. Lance seems the type of person to fill up a room with his presence, making him impossible to ignore. But, for the life of him, Keith can’t recall seeing Lance in any of his classes. Can’t bring to mind Lance’s easy splay of long limbs, or the cocksure grin that sparks a tiny flame of warmth in Keith’s stomach. Lance tilts his head to the side, considering Keith with that smug smile of his, and says, “You don’t remember me at all, do you?”

“Not really.”

He does feel kind of bad about that, to be honest. Like he’s failed some sort of test he should have easily passed. But Lance just shakes his head.

“Doesn’t matter,” he says. “One day you will. I know it. Just wait and see.”

_Just wait, ok Keith?_

_Keith?_

“Keith!” Lance exclaims when he comes to. It’s the first sound Keith hears, and it sends a rush of warmth through him as he all but collapses from the cryo-replenisher into a pair of waiting arms. Lance holds him close, letting his heat and strength seep into Keith through the thin material of the skinsuit, and presses his face to the top of Keith’s head. Slowly, he lowers both himself and Keith to the floor, then guides Keith even further down so he can rest his head on Lance’s legs.

And yes, this is much better. This is what Keith needs to stop the spinning in his head, and to clear the last of the fog the healing trance left in his mind.

He feels terrible. Like he got hit by a truck, or maybe sent through a black hole without any sort of protection. His _everything_ hurts, especially his chest and stomach, which both shoot needles of fire through the rest of his body with every breath he takes. The only thing he can think to do to alleviate the pain is to roll from his side onto his back, which he does as slowly and carefully as he has the patience for. Then, once he’s settled, he leans his head back and blinks the rest of his haze away, until his eyes can focus and lock onto Lance hovering worriedly above him.

“Uh, hi,” Keith says. Or attempts to say, at least. He’s not sure the croak that comes out of his mouth can actually be counted as a word, but Lance seems to understand anyways and he huffs out a watery laugh.

“Hi,” Lance repeats. “Comes back from the dead, and all he can say is ‘hi.’ Unbelievable.”

He shakes his head, eyes closed and tears sliding down his cheeks, and for the first time Keith notices that Lance is actually shaking. His hands tremble where they rest on Keith’s shoulders, and, if he looks close enough, Keith can see the tremors actually travel up Lance’s arms and down his spine. He looks absolutely wrecked. More so than Keith’s ever seen.

Keith furrows his brows and tries to make sense of the situation. Obviously, he’s been hurt, since he just came out of the cryo-replenisher. Probably in a battle, and probably pretty badly if Lance is this upset. He weighs Lance’s words in his mind, weighs his comment about coming back from the dead, and picks apart snatches of memory from within his scrambled mind. The messy battle, the blaster shot at Lance’s back, his frantic attempt to shield Lance from the damage.

It hits him then, what happened. Hits him like a wave on the shore, drowning Keith in the memories. In the knowledge that Keith nearly died in Lance’s place. That he did so completely willingly and entirely aware of the consequences, all to protect Lance harm. It seems to have worked though, as Lance is sitting there whole and unscathed, and Keith is glad for it.

Lance, it appears, is less so.

“You’re an idiot, Keith,” he says. “A complete idiot. Who just runs into a blaster shot like that, huh?”

Keith winces, but doesn’t apologize. He can’t apologize. Not for this. He knew full well what that blaster would do, and he chose to block it anyways. And Keith would do it all over again if he needed without a second of hesitation. Without any regret.

Because the truth of it is, Keith understands now why his dad always seemed so far away while looking at the stars. Understands the awe in his dad’s voice, and the stars in his eyes. Understands the sort of longing that draws someone into orbit around a star only they can see, helpless to the pull of their gravity.

He understands, because he, too, has found his star— that sun around which his whole universe revolves. He’s found it, and he’ll do everything in his power to keep it in his grasp. Even run straight into death.

He doesn’t say this to Lance though. Doesn’t try to explain. He just presses his hand against Lance’s wet cheek and lets Lance hold him. He stares up at his star. And he just breathes.


End file.
